Measurement, Data Display, and Interpretation
This type of measurement records every occurrence of a behavior during observation.
Answer: Continuous measurement
Explanation: Continuous measurement provides a complete record of behavior
This single-case design uses baseline (A) and intervention (B) phases to evaluate behavior change.
Answer: AB design
Explanation: AB design includes a baseline and intervention but cannot demonstrate experimental control without replication
This is the BACB’s document that outlines the professional and ethical behavior expected of certificants.
Answer: BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts
Explanation: All certificants are required to follow the Code
What is a skill or developmental assessment?
answer: This type of assessment is used to identify what a client can do, their skill levels, and deficits.
Explanation: Helps determine baseline skills for intervention planning
This procedure increases the likelihood of a behavior by delivering a preferred stimulus after the behavior occurs.
Answer: positive reinforcement
Explanation: Positive reinforcement strengthens behavior by adding a preferred consequence
When using partial-interval recording, you mark the interval if the behavior occurs at any point during the interval. True or False?
Answer: True
Partial-interval tends to overestimate total behavior because it counts the interval even if behavior occurred briefly
This design staggered across behaviors, settings, or participants demonstrates functional control without withdrawing intervention.
Answer: multiple baseline design
Explanation: Multiple baseline is ideal when withdrawing treatment is unethical or impractical
A BCBA discovers a colleague is falsifying data. The BCBA should do this to maintain ethical practice.
Answer: report the misconduct according to the BACB Code
Explanation: Certificants must take action to ensure honesty and integrity in the field
Which type of assessment is used to identify antecedents and consequences maintaining problem behavior?
Answer: Functional Behavior Assessment
Explanation: FBAs are used to determine the function of behavior to guide intervention
This procedure reduces a behavior by removing a preferred stimulus when the behavior occurs.
Answer:
negative punishment (or response cost)?
Explanation: Negative punishment decreases behavior by taking away something desirable
You create a graph to visually display a client’s daily problem behavior. You include phase lines to indicate when an intervention started. What is the main purpose of phase lines?
Answer: To show changes in conditions or interventions on the graph
Explanation: Phase lines help determine if behavior changes coincide with interventions
In this design, two or more interventions are rapidly alternated to determine which is more effective for the same behavior.
Answer: alternating treatments design (ATD)
Explanation: ATD allows quick comparison of interventions while controlling for extraneous variables
A client requests therapy outside of normal working hours. The BCBA should:
A) Always comply to support client needs
B) Evaluate ethical and professional boundaries before responding
C) Ignore the request
D) Refer the client to another professional without consideration
Answer: B) Evaluate ethical and professional boundaries before responding
Explanation: BCBAs must balance client needs with professional boundaries and ethical practice
Direct observation of a client’s behavior in natural settings is called:
A) Indirect assessment
B) Functional analysis
C) Naturalistic observation
D) Standardized testing
Answer:
C) Naturalistic observation
Explanation: Observing behavior in context provides accurate information about environmental influences
Gradually reinforcing closer approximations to a target behavior until the final behavior is achieved is called:
Answer:shaping
Explanation: Shaping allows complex or novel behaviors to be taught in small steps
You implement an intervention and graph the results. The graphed data show level changes, trend, and variability. Visual analysis suggests improvement, but occasional spikes occur. What should your next step as a BCBA be?
Answer: Continue data collection, analyze patterns, and adjust the intervention if needed
Explanation: Data should guide decisions; variability must be considered before concluding effectiveness (
A design that introduces and removes an intervention repeatedly to demonstrate a functional relation is called what?
Answer: reversal (ABAB) design
Explanation: Reversal designs demonstrate experimental control by showing behavior changes systematically with and without the intervention
A BCBA is asked to supervise a student in a setting outside their area of competence. The ethical action is to:
A) Accept and supervise anyway
B) Only supervise if the student agrees
C) Decline or arrange appropriate supervision by a qualified BCBA
D) Supervise but avoid providing feedback
Answer: C) Decline or arrange appropriate supervision by a qualified BCBA ✅
Explanation: BCBAs must only provide supervision within their area of competence, ensuring ethical and effective oversight
A support staff completes a questionnaire about a individual’s vulnerable distress behavior (I.e., physical, verbal aggression, etc) in the community. This type of assessment is called:
Answer: an indirect assessment
Explanation: Indirect assessments collect information from caregivers or others through interviews, rating scales, or questionnaires
Teaching a learner to respond correctly to new stimuli without direct instruction, using previously learned stimulus-stimulus relations, is an example of:
Answer:
Promoting emergent relations or generative learning?
Explanation: This allows learners to demonstrate novel responses based on learned rules
You are testing a new intervention in an adult day program, but withdrawing the intervention could be harmful. Which single-case experimental design would allow you to demonstrate experimental control without removing the intervention?
Answer: multiple baseline design?
Explanation: Multiple baseline designs stagger intervention across participants, settings, or behaviors to show experimental control ethically
You want to test whether a behavior is maintained by attention, tangibles, escape, or automatic reinforcement. Which assessment method directly manipulates conditions to test hypotheses about function?
Answer: a functional analysis (FA)
Explanation: FA systematically manipulates antecedents and consequences to identify functional relations